Ginger cake

Another week, another Nigel Slater cake from The Kitchen Diaries. This time, I made his double ginger cake; well, sort of. I actually made a single ginger cake because I didn't have any stem ginger, which I didn't realise that I needed until after I had started making the cake. This is because I am such an organised person who always reads the recipe before starting - NOT!

I also found half way through that I didn't have enough golden syrup. When I made the pumpkin sultana loaf and I didn't have any maple syrup, I used golden syrup instead, so I thought I would try the reverse on this occasion, and make up the shortfall in golden syrup with maple syrup. Luckily for me, this worked a treat.

Although all of my sultanas decided to sink to the bottom of the cake, I was pleased with the result. It is a really nice, solid cake in a traditional gingerbread style. It is not overwhelmingly gingery (although it might have been more gingery if I had actually used the stem ginger!!), but is very pleasant tasting and moist, and has a beautiful golden colour:

To make it my way (as opposed to how you are supposed to make it), you need the following:

250g self raising flour

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

100g golden syrup

100g maple syrup

125g cubed butter

2 tablespoons sultanas

125g brown sugar

2 eggs

240ml milk (skim is fine)

Grease and line a 20cm square cake tin, and preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Sift the dry ingredients together into a large bowl and set aside. Warm the syrups and the butter over a low heat on the stovetop. Once the butter has melted, add the sugar and the sultanas, and bring just to the boil, stirring all the while, then remove from the heat.

Beat the eggs and milk together in a jug. Pour the syrup mixture into the dry ingredients and stir to combine, then stir in the milk mixture. Pour the liquid batter into the prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for roughly 40 minutes. Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool in its tin on a wire rack. Nigel recommends wrapping the cake in alfoil and allowing it mature for a couple of days before eating, but I thought it was great straight away.

This cake is good by itself, but in winter it would make a smashing dessert warmed up with hot custard poured over it.